Category Archives: Market Intelligence

Customer Experience is the area many retailers have chosen to compete on over the past few years. When it comes to shopping, it is breaking increasingly into “chore” vs. “cherish” activities. On the “chore” side, firms like Amazon offer commodity pricing, streamlined delivery, and voice recognition to make online ordering an easy experience for obtaining essentials. That leaves “cherish,” the type of shopping based on the discovery of interesting products and socializing them with others. This type of shopping is characterized by a great physical presence, unique items, and creating meaningful experiences. You’ll find artisan crafted products, hand-picked selections, custom built offers, or even built-by-the customer creations. How might a retailer best compete in the Customer Experience realm?

One of the first areas to consider is to understand the external environment. What are the trends and who are the competitors? Are there competitors offering something similar? How are they unique? What kinds of experiences do they offer? Are they competing on digital or physical experience or both or is it something else?

Next, savvy retailers track and map internal environment elements like customer journeys and voice of the customer as well as metrics like Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction. Asking for feedback after every interaction or transaction is wearing customers down so building insight via analytics into the flow (that is not invasive) will be a key.

With external and internal environment insight in hand, retailers have a number of levers available to pull. Retailers can swiftly test and prototype various experience design elements using service blueprinting, bio-mimicry and design thinking. Some are using Virtual Reality to conduct their prototyping digitally as a first step. Capturing insight via primary and secondary research about the external and internal environment goes a long way towards creating a strategy to compete on customer experience as a differentiator in retail. Knowing the type of shopping that your current and future customers engage in can align your strategy and go-to-market initiatives on a path toward delivering meaningful and differentiated customer experiences in the digital and physical worlds.

Competing in the financial services industry can be as risky as it is broad. While the services of our clients in the financial services industry range from consumer finance to sophisticated back-office technology in the insurance industry, they all share a common challenge of dealing with quick, continuous and sometimes dramatic changes in the industry. Driven by government regulations, global economics, technology and many other factors, these organizations know that changes in their industry can happen swiftly and can devastate profits for those that misread the tea leaves. They also know that timely and objective knowledge and insight can help offset those risks and challenges.

In one financial services segment, our client deals with competitive offers and pricing that changes on a monthly basis or less. With the help of Line of Sight Group, however, managers know about the changes in near-real-time, and use the information to identify situations where they have a competitive advantage. They quickly funnel the information to their sales force who uses it to contact client prospects, confident that they have a true advantage to gain a new customer. This client conservatively estimates an ROI on the research and insight at over 20 to 1.

Late last year, another client asked Line of Sight Group to conduct a deep analysis on an adjacent market in which they were contemplating entry. In early 2017, they made the decision to go forward with the move and began maneuvering resources for the planned entry late this year. Not only did the analysis provide the support needed to make a confident strategic decision, it also provided guidance in the build-out phase to align products, pricing and positioning. The insight was further extended as education for the business development team about the market and how to out-sell the competition they were getting ready to face.

Still another client in the financial services technology sector, utilized our Competitive Landscape Program as part of its overall strategy formulation following a major restructuring. By gaining insight into the key growth strategies and buying criteria of buyers in its target segment, and overlaying that data with insight about its primary competition and its own competitive position (it is not the industry leader), management developed a variation of a ‘fast-follower’ strategy. Predicated on management’s understanding that they cannot predict the future and control the uncontrollable, and that the industry leader tends to respond sluggishly, they are building a competency that enables management to adjust its strategies based on a continuous ‘external learning loop’ focused on its industry and markets. This allows them to quickly identify and take advantage of new opportunities.

The stakes can be extremely high in the financial services industry with high capital intensity, powerful regulation and dynamic market and competitive factors. Because they are in the financial services industry, however, risk management is in their DNA. They understand how to manage market and operational risk, and understand that market and industry research is a vital component of their risk strategy. These firms also understand economics. They understand the value of accurate, timely and unbiased research and insight, and that the investment will pay dividends in both the short and long-term.

Last week, Line of Sight Group partnered with the Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Association to deliver a panel discussion to explore how various organizational roles define and use intelligence to formulate strategy and execute go-to-market initiatives. The panel consisted of practitioners from several industries and across several roles. There were panelists and attendees not only from SCIP but from other associations representing the roles we sought including Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA) and the Special Libraries Association (SLA).

The fast-paced discussion first explored what types of intelligence were needed. With so much data available from so many sources, there is a heightened importance for analyzing, synthesizing and making sense of it. Several ideas emerged from making it simple, visual, or put into the context of the consumer of the intelligence. One of the firms had operationalized this into Red, Yellow, and Green dashboards. Some added that storytellers could be employed to convey the messages and clues found in the intelligence. There was attention given to the ways that technology was impacting the field – several firms are using or are built on analytics. Others are starting to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR).

There were some interesting examples, as well. One firm conducted Scenario Planning and accurately predicted the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon. Another example was that Red Roof Inns capitalized on the fact that 2% of all airline flights are cancelled and figured out a way to cater to temporarily stranded travelers yielding a very favorable business outcome.

Another aspect that emerged was the importance of building trust and collaborating amongst the various roles in research, product management, marketing, sales, customer experience and strategy formulation. With the advent of technology like cloud, mobile, big data and the aforementioned analytics, AI and VR, the notion of sustainable competitive advantage is challenged. This points towards an ongoing monitoring of the external environment to either avoid disruption or to get ahead of the curve and do some disruption.

The panel ended by sharing a list of helpful books:

The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company by John Rossman

Line of Sight Group is proud to be part of SCIP Minnesota’s panel discussion later this month. President and Founder Steve Schulz will join other top experts in the competitive intelligence, product management, and customer experience arenas.

The discussion will touch on and provide insight on common challenges, including the type of intelligence leadership is looking for, and illustrate how top practitioners gather intelligence for internal use and on their competitors. Panelists will also illustrate some useful tips and tools that are used by top practitioners.

Line of Sight’s Market-i Competitive Intelligence Program is a SCIP “Endorsed” product. Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) is the nonprofit Association representing the Integrated Intelligence industry internationally for over 32 years.

I was talking with someone recently who wanted to accomplish three specific tasks – gather market intelligence, create competitive profiles and send out newsletters. As we talked further, we discovered that the three tasks were closely related. The conversation then shifted to what intelligence was needed and how would it be used?

In this situation, it probably makes sense to take one step back and conduct a Competitive Landscape Analysis using helpful frameworks like PESTEL and Five Forces. These types of analyses can narrow the focus and yield a specific set of competitors and trends to study and monitor.

Next, a knowledge portal, like Line of Sight Group’s Market-i Competitive Intelligence System, enables a way to organize, relate and contextualize all types of structured and unstructured intelligence. Using this system and the information garnered from the Competitive Landscape Analysis, a team could start gathering competitive intelligence, saving it, and then creating weekly newsletters, demonstrating swift value.

After several weeks or months, competitive profiles could also be created. As soon as these profiles were activated, all of the previously posted articles and artifacts could automatically link and append to the profiles. Similarly, any new intelligence added to Market-i would have immediate relevance and would add to the collective knowledge. The newsletter function could also include tips and techniques for using the intelligence as well as information regarding what to look for and how to capture it.

Knowing what you are looking for, why you need it, and how you will use it will allow you to architect a solution that will provide short and long term benefits. It also becomes more valuable with each new piece of intelligence, report or artifact added. Finally, an approach that includes both a push and a pull aspect helps ensure that there will be high levels of engagement. The total value can indeed be greater than that of the parts.